James Gurney

This weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Saturday, April 28, 2018

The scene is a forest pond, with several croc-like metoposaurids called Koskinonodons basking in the shallows, absorbing the warmth of a patch of sunlight.

Triassic Pond, casein, gouache, and acrylic, James Gurney, 2018

The flora is a mix of cycads, tree ferns, horsetail ferns, ginkgo, and other Triassic plant forms. Meanwhile, a small group of dinosaur precursors emerge tentatively from the shadows, hoping to get a safe drink.

The giant amphibians usually eat fish, but they'll snatch an unwary dinosaur. Dinosaurs don't rule the world—they live at the margins.

It's mid-winter as I prepare for this painting, which appears in the current (May, 2018) issue of Scientific American Magazine. There's a foot of snow on the ground, and we're hit with a total electrical blackout that lasts for days.

But since my methods are mostly old-school, I'm able to sculpt a maquetteusing Sculpey for the metoposaurid and Model Magic for the bank.I fill a take-out container with muddy water, and set the creature in a basking position. The maquette helps me understand where light turns to shadow and where to place the highlights.

Friday, April 27, 2018

The dinosaur is skinny, about the size of a housecat. At least that's what paleontologist Stephen Brusatte thinks. There's no skeleton to reconstruct. Prorotodactylus is known only from its footprints.

The point of the story is that dinosaurs lived for millions of years at the margins of ecosystems dominated by amphibians and mammal-like reptiles. It was just a set of lucky circumstances that allowed dinosaurs to take over the planet.

I gave the editors lots of options to look at. The sketches are in gouache, each one smaller than a business card. The editors discussed the options, and Design Director Michael Mrak requested the layout of Sketch #5 with the color scheme of Sketch #2.

The final result, painted in oil, uses theatrical lighting to spotlight the little dinosaur and his footprints. I love the headline that the editors came up with.

He was famous for his admonition that young painters "should go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her instruction; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth."

But he also added that "straight documentation does not make up a work of art," and he recommended that once artists fill their eyes and minds with nature's forms, they should "take up the scarlet and the gold, give the reins to their fancy, and show us what their heads are made of."

Wyeth, watercolor study of a blackberry branch

Wyeth said, "Art to me, is seeing. I think you have got to use your eyes, as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn't work."

He did careful studies throughout his career, and used them to "get down to the real substance of life itself."

Andrew Wyeth Sycamore Tree, detail

Wyeth's large drybrush drawings are an impressive testament to his patience and concentration.

He had deep appreciation for ordinary subjects close to home. He said, "You can be in a place for years and years and not see something...and then when it dawns, all sorts of nuggets of richness start popping all over the place. You've gotten below the obvious."

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

On Sunday night we had a sold-out audience for my mini-workshop at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo Park, Maryland.

After my lecture presentation, I did a half-hour gouache portrait. My model was Steve Hanson, who was wearing a reproduction antique vest and coat. Steve has portrayed John Brown in a historical reenactment at Harper's Ferry.